Jonathan Vaughters: The teams I could have raced for
The EF Education-EasyPost CEO on joining Crédit Agricole and then returning to the US
Continuing a new series, I’m talking to riders and ex-riders about teams they almost signed with during their careers. This week, we have Jonathan Vaughters. The American raced through the 1990s and early 2000s, and was a teammate of Lance Armstrong at US Postal, but also wore kits for Crédit Agricole and Prime Alliance before building the most successful US team of the last 15 years.
When I went to Crédit Agricole in 2000, I had two offers that year. One was from Roger Legeay’s French team, and the other was from the Italian squad, Saeco.
The offers were essentially the same money, but ultimately, I liked Roger a lot more. And in choosing Crédit Agricole, I put myself in the best position to quit doping. I’m not trying to throw another team under the bus, but the reality was that in the late '90s, French teams were forced to clean up their acts because you’d go to prison if you were caught with doping products in France. That wasn’t the case in some other countries, such as Spain or Italy.